Charcoal Drawings_Old Time Songs & Stories

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Out of Her Gourd

Charcoal on Paper

24" x 18"

2016

Here's another portrait of Mitch, playing my homemade gourd banjo. (See "Communitas" for more information about the gourd banjo).

For the title, I was thinking of Clarke Buehling's great album called "Out of His Gourd." He plays a gourd banjo on the album, songs and tunes from antebellum banjo instruction books, called "primers," and songs from the minstrel stage.

Historically, society considered women who played the banjo reprobates who should be shunned. When the banjo became a parlor instrument in the mid 1880s, it was somewhat more acceptable for women to play. Into the mid 20thc., Upland Southerners still thought it was socially unacceptable for women to play the banjo.